Former General Electric CEO: ‘American leadership in Middle East reminiscent of Carter in 1979′

Jack Welch, once the CEO of General Electric, now runs his own management institute. From his perch on Twitter, he looked down upon the Obama administration’s handling of the current Mideast crisis and felt an unwelcome pang of nostalgia on Thursday morning: “American leadership today in the Middle East is reminiscent of Carter in 1979 … ”

Welch was also critical of how journalists have been covering the situation: “Unbelievable seeing media caught ganging up on Romney when issue was Middle East policy and tragic death of Ambassador.”

Welch isn’t the only one noting Obama’s rapidly accelerating transformation into Jimmy Carter. Obama even echoed a Carter criticism of Ronald Reagan when he said, in a CBS interview taped Wednesday night, that Mitt Romney “seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later.”

As Byron York at the Washington Examinerrecalls, Carter said Regan’s Republican Party had leaders “inclined to shoot from the hip,” and turned this into a recurring criticism of Reagan in his political ads. That’s apparently how indifferent, indecisive, confused non-leadership protects itself from perspicacious criticism. Everyone who doesn’t need a day or two to get his message straight, figure out which parts of the Constitution are worth defending, and delete a boatload of regrettable State Department communications from social media is shooting without aiming first.